Multi-channel Utilization Algorithms for IEEE 802.15.4 based Wireless Network: A Survey

In the pass years, IEEE 802.15.4 based Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have received great attention and have been employed in many areas such as inventory checking, local monitoring and alarming etc. One of the key issues affecting WSN's system performance is interference caused by devices operating with the same or different standards on the overlapping frequency within the 2.4 GHz ISM band. This paper addresses the coexistence problem, which is the key motivation for the necessity of flexible channel usage. A review of existing approaches being proposed to date supporting multi-channel utilization in IEEE 802.15.4 based WSNs is categorized and discussed. The paper also presents major functionalities needed in implementing multi-channel utilization

An intelligent-agent approach for managing congestion in W-CDMA networks

PhDResource Management is a crucial aspect in the next generation cellular networks since the use of W-CDMA technology gives an inherent flexibility in managing the system capacity. The concept of a “Service Level Agreement” (SLA) also plays a very important role as it is the means to guarantee the quality of service provided to the customers in response to the level of service to which they have subscribed. Hence there is a need to introduce effective SLA-based policies as part of the radio resource management. This work proposes the application of intelligent agents in SLA-based control in resource management, especially when congestion occurs. The work demonstrates the ability of intelligent agents in improving and maintaining the quality of service to meet the required SLA as the congestion occurs. A particularly novel aspect of this work is the use of learning (here Case Based Reasoning) to predict the control strategies to be imposed. As the system environment changes, the most suitable policy will be implemented. When congestion occurs, the system either proposes the solution by recalling from experience (if the event is similar to what has been previously solved) or recalculates the solution from its knowledge (if the event is new). With this approach, the system performance will be monitored at all times and a suitable policy can be immediately applied as the system environment changes, resulting in maintaining the system quality of service

Centralized Control for Dynamic Channel Allocation in IEEE 802.15.4 Based Wireless Sensor Networks

Coexistence problem is one of the most important issues in the IEEE 802.15.4 based Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), since the system operates on the highly populated 2.4 GHz ISM band. As a result, system performance of WSNs can be greatly impaired by the interference from over powering signal from other systems such as WLAN and Bluetooth. This paper proposes an approach based on centralized control for dynamic channel allocation. The proposed method offers multi-channel utilization with intelligent controlling mechanism in order to provide system performance enhancement in order to cope with variation of interfered environment. Based on centralized control, decision making process is performed by the network coordinator allowing such system flexibility. Simulation model has been developed and it is embedded with this proposed mechanism in order to test the system performance. To observe the system performance under the proposed method, variety of simulation scenarios are performed with the variation of two major factors affecting system performance including the size of the network topology and the scale of interference. Proposed method is evaluated and the simulation results are compared against tradition system as well as system with multi-channel utilization method with channel scheduling. The flexibility of the method proposed here allows the system to have better system performance under different test scenarios both in terms of average packet end-to-end delay and system throughput

Cognitive Wireless Sensor Networks: Intelligent Channel Assignment

One of the major problems in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is the traffic congestion caused by increasing number of devices sharing the limited spectrum of the ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical radio) band. As a result, a new concept of Cognitive Wireless Sensor Networks (CWSNs) has been proposed in order to achieve reliable and efficient communication via spectrum awareness and smart adaption. Based on such concept, this paper proposes the intelligent channel assignment technique for channel management in CWSNs. The proposed method is based on the learning and prediction technique so called Policy Gradient together with our proposed virtual channel environment classification. Simulation model is used for the system performance evaluation. The simulation results show that our proposed intelligent channel assignment provides substantially higher performance in terms of system throughput and average packet end-to-end delay than the traditional IEEE 802.15.4 based system. It also outperforms the systems integrated with Episodic Reinforcement and GPOMDP learning technique

Blockchain Technology, Technical Challenges and Countermeasures for Illegal Data Insertion

Blockchain is a decentralized transaction and data management technology. It was developed for the world’s first cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin in 2008. The reason behind its popularity was its properties which provide pseudonymity, security, and data integrity without third-party intervention.  Initially, most of the researches were focused on the Bitcoin system and its limitation, but later other applications of Blockchain e.g. smart contracts and licensing [1] also got famous. Blockchain technology has the potential to change the way how transactions are conducted in daily life. It is not limited to cryptocurrencies but could be possibly applied in various environments where any forms of transactions are done. This article presents a comprehensive overview of Blockchain technology, its development, applications, security issues, and their countermeasures. In particular, the security towards illegal data insertion and the countermeasures is focused. Our analysis of countermeasures of illegal data insertion can be combined for increased efficiency. After the introduction of the Blockchain and consensus algorithm, some famous Blockchain applications and expected future of Blockchain are deliberated. Then, the technical challenges of Blockchain are discussed, in which the main focus here is on the security and the data insertion in Blockchain. The review of the possible countermeasures to overcome the security issues related to data insertion are elaborated

Selected RSSI-based DV-Hop Localization for Wireless Sensor Networks

With the increasing demand on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) applications, acquiring the information of sensor node locations becomes one of the most important issues. Up to now, available localization approaches can be categorized into range-free and range-based methods. Range-free localizations are being pursued as a more cost-effective method. However, range-based schemes have better localization accuracy. This paper proposes the selected RSSI-based DV-Hop localization, which improves localization accuracy from the existing schemes by applying a combined technique that inherits the benefits from both methods. Our proposed technique firstly employs the DV-Hop approach of range-free algorithms, then uses the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) estimation technique of range-based algorithms to estimate the distances of selected hops. This paper also includes basic studies, which have been performed via computer simulations as well as testbed experiments, for distance calculation from RSSI measurement and location estimation in order to prove the credibility of our simulator. The proposed technique is implemented and tested via our developed WSN simulation model. Results in terms of distance error in comparison with traditional DV-Hop, RDV-Hop, and weighted RSSI algorithms show significant performance improvement by using our proposed method for both low-density and high-density wireless sensor network test scenarios

Comparative Study of Scheduling Algorithms in LTE HetNets with Almost Blank Subframe

The trend and human lifestyle have been changing, which lead to the tremendously increasing demand for data usage over wireless communication systems even on the go. Traffic offload has been used for LTE Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) to optimize overall system capacity via load balancing mechanisms among network tiers. In this work, the two main techniques used for interference coordination in the multi-tier systems i.e. Almost Blank Subframe (ABS) and Cell Range Expansion (CRE) have been focused on. Resource scheduling is one of the major issues in LTE HetNets aimed at efficient radio resource allocation. Based on the implementation of ABS and CRE mechanisms, this work investigates the system performance while different scheduling schemes are implemented. Five scheduling schemes including Round Robin (RR), Best-Channel Quality Identification (Best-CQI), Maximum Throughput (Max-TP), Proportional Fairness (PF), and Resource Fairness (RF) are considered here. The simulation studies include a comparison of the LTE HetNet system performance under different ABS and CRE configured parameters as well as employing different scheduling mechanisms. System performance is observed in terms of the average throughput, the peak throughput, the edge throughput, and the fairness index. The results provide recommendations on the system configurations as well as the choice of a scheduler that can be considered or suitable for different scenarios and network planning objectives. Coined from these results, the Best-CQI and the Max-TP mechanism offer the highest peak throughput and the high average throughput. The RR, PF, and RF provide the high cell edge throughput and fairness index, however, the peak throughput has been compromised